X-Files premiere ratings: Early numbers are out of this world

Fox won’t have to create any conspiracy theories to explain their ratings this time:The X-Files premiere numbers are looking pretty impressive.

Nielsen’s early returns for Sunday’s heavily marketed debut are still sketchy — they need to be “time zone-adjusted” since the sci-fi drama got off to a late start on the East Coast (beginning at 10:24 p.m.). But even if you ignore the inflated first half hour and just look at 10:30 to 11 p.m. on the preliminary national chart,X-Files reportedly had 13.5 million viewers and a big 5.1 rating among adults 18–49. We will update this post with the new numbers once Nielsen accounts for the late start and entire hour of viewership.